Lucas,
The parent trigger is back. This bill would open the door for private charter management companies to take over struggling public schools. Despite being defeated last year by a bipartisan coalition of parents, teachers, and public education supporters, the corporate allies of charter companies in the legislature aren't going away.
Last week, a House committee arrogantly brushed aside the testimony of dozens of parents and passed the trigger bill along partisan lines. The parent trigger isn't about involving parents or helping public schools, it's about bolstering the bottom lines of for-profit charter management companies.
Write your legislators and Gov. Scott and urge them to oppose CS/HB 867, the parent trigger bill.
We can all agree that parental involvement is key to the success of a child's education, but turning over struggling public schools to for-profit charters isn't the way to do this. The proposed bill would affect public schools that have been graded an "F" school by the Florida Department of Education. In those schools under the parent trigger, if 51% of the school's parents sign a petition to do so, the school would be turned over to a charter management company. For some people, this may sound good in theory. However, in California where the trigger is law, this misguided policy has only served to politicize education even further, pitting parents against parents. It has done nothing to improve the quality of education children receive.
The truth is there's no silver bullet (or simple "trigger") to improving our public schools. The issues facing struggling schools are a reflection of the communities they're a part of, and the Florida Legislature has demonstrated little interest in solving those problems. If state lawmakers were serious about improving our schools, they would address our neglected pre-k system, child nutrition, lack of access to health care, and the myriad of external issues that affect student performance. They would also do more to support school advisory committees, which every public school is required to have. Instead, too many legislators maintain a myopic focus on high stakes testing and punishing teachers while pursuing ideological distractions like the parent trigger.
Parent organizations throughout our state, including the Florida PTA, and civil rights organizations like the NAACP and LULAC all oppose the parent trigger. They recognize this bill for what it is: another ideological attack against our public schools that has nothing to do with improving the education our children receive.
Thanks for standing up for a strong public education system for all Floridians.
For progress,
Mark, Damien, and the rest of the Progress Florida team